≫ Libro History of the Rain Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Niall Williams 9781408852026 Books

History of the Rain Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Niall Williams 9781408852026 Books

Download As PDF : History of the Rain Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Niall Williams 9781408852026 Books

History of the Rain Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Niall Williams 9781408852026 Books

I would give this book a hundred stars if I could. It is a classic about Ruth,a young Irish girl, struggling to find her way through despair and illness. The author takes the reader into the heart of her family. The characters have sharp powers of observation, flights of fancy, the love of talk, and great wit with a trace of sorrow, traits, it is maintained that the Irish have in abundance. I often forget the storyline and characters shortly after I have read a book. That will never happen with History of the Rain.


Tags : History of the Rain: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 [Niall Williams] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.,Niall Williams,History of the Rain: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014,Bloomsbury Publishing PLC,1408852020

History of the Rain Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Niall Williams 9781408852026 Books Reviews

An Irish girl has some terrible disease (cancer?), and is stuck in her bed. She has read all of the thousands of books in her attic bedroom, many of them many times. Most are classics. Books are her entire life. So she writes a book about the history of her family, with an allusion to some literary character, author or event on almost every page.

The best things about this novel are (a) the fun of appreciating the allusions (okay, I didn't get at least 25% of them, not being as well informed on the classics...); (b) learning about life in a modern-day Irish small town; (c) watching the history of a very quirky family unfold; and (d) being amazed at the sheer beauty of the writing.

Also, it was great that the tongue-in-cheek descriptions of an Irish town never became cutesy or patronizing. You felt that the author really knew these townspeople, was irritated by them sometimes, amused by them sometimes, but also had a fundamental respect for them.

The writing is absolutely stunning. I kept wanting to underline whole paragraphs. Here's an example

"I am thin but not of the sylph kind, more the gawky lanky kind which may be what constitutes the Swain Beautiful but feels Rangy Ruth to me. My knees are actually sharp. At that age I am officially Waiting for My Chest. The Chest Fairy is on the way from Boozoomia or somewhere and all the girls in my class are going to sleep at night in their own state of Great Expectation, waking up and checking is that it? -- throwing their shoulders far back and breasting the world, as if the task of womanhood is to balance the weight that lands on your chest and could easily topple you over. Which in a way I suppose is true."

Here's another one

"Each family functions in their own way, by rules reinvented daily. The strangeness of each of us is somehow accommodated so that there can be such a thing as family and we can all live for some time at least in the same house. Normal is what you know."

Now here's why I didn't give it five stars. It went on a bit too long. The descriptive parts were all very lovely, but there just so many of them. And I wanted to know what happened in the end. Even though I became impatient with a few of the characters sometimes, I also became quite fond of them, and wanted to see the plot resolve itself. I therefore ended up skimming over some of the beautiful descriptions, to reach what turned out to be a very satisfying ending.
Irish girl Ruth Swain writes a homage to her recently departed father Virgil, an unpublished poet, whose life was burdened by never reaching the unattainable standard set by his father Abraham, who similarly could not meet that set by his father, and her great-grandfather, Absalom. The book moves back and forward in time relating the story of the Swain men who move from England to Ireland, amongst that of Ruth's life with her brother Aeney, mother Mary, father, and her Nan MacCarroll in a small village on the Irish west coast on the banks of the River Shannon. Ruth lies in bed ill, surrounded by the 3000 or so books her father has left her, whose characters are brought to life by comparison to her fellow villagers. Slow moving like the river, sometimes dreamlike, with Irish folk tales, spirits, and beliefs interleaved in the narrative, Niall builds the story towards its unstoppable and typically Irish tragic ending. It is an ode to books and reading, salmon fishing, rain, at times humourous (broadband? we haven't even got narrowband), with the backdrop of the collapse of the Irish economy a minor bit player. Nominated for the Booker Prize 2014. Highly recommended.
"There's a book inside you. There's a library inside me."

I woke up thinking about this novel, and I almost regret dedicating my morning to finishing it. But sometimes a story begs to be devoured.

Sometimes, you can tell an author is a devout reader through their writing. Niall Williams clearly is one of these types, based on History of the Rain. So, of course, I love him the more for it. This is a story of family, history, love, tragedy, Ireland, and books. And it's probably my favorite Man Booker 2014 longlisted novel so far.

Ruth lives in her room due to a vague illness and a fear of the outdoors. She's inherited her father's extensive library, where she attempts to find him, one book at a time. Throughout the story, books are dropped like rain, and I was personally reminded of how many I need to experience. Though I'm very familiar with one of the most important writers frequently mentioned Yeats. For how could you not include him in an Irish novel about writing and poetry? So, he's there. History of the Rain will surely strike a chord in people who appreciate not just the story inside the books, but the history and physicality of them as well. I'm firmly in the camp of books being a necessary part of my home's ecosystem. But as I've gotten older I've come to relish certain stories not just for the meaning of their content but for the fact that they were purchased and read by my father. A few he's given to me, and reading them is something personally spectacular. Though I'm not searching for my father in the way Ruth must, I find through his books how he came to be who he is now, before I ever existed. A moment like this I could particularly see in my own father (and perhaps a quality in myself)
"The library that grew in our house contained all my father's idiosyncrasies, contained the man he was at thirty-five, and at forty, at forty-five. He did not edit himself. He did not look back at the books of ten years ago and pluck out the ones whose taste was no longer his."
I can relate to this as my Father's only daughter (and child), and the importance it's had on my own life. Williams writes of a father/daughter relationship not often seen in literature, though these are generally portrayed much less than father/son relationships in the first place.

Niall Williams writes with beautiful clarity and apparent ease. Hardly a chapter or page went by without a pause to take note of something profound. The imagery evoked in this sleepy community celebrates the Irish qualities that only such an account as this can excite. I wanted to fly to Ireland immediately while reading, but perhaps I should explore my own history first.

If themes like this are of any interest, I encourage a thorough reading of this chronicle of one family. Though you don't need to be a Swain, or Irish for that matter, you may find pieces of your own history in this account, like I did.

Highly recommended.
I would give this book a hundred stars if I could. It is a classic about Ruth,a young Irish girl, struggling to find her way through despair and illness. The author takes the reader into the heart of her family. The characters have sharp powers of observation, flights of fancy, the love of talk, and great wit with a trace of sorrow, traits, it is maintained that the Irish have in abundance. I often forget the storyline and characters shortly after I have read a book. That will never happen with History of the Rain.